


Basics in Behaviour

by Pixel_Illusion



Category: Baldi's Basics (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22814818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixel_Illusion/pseuds/Pixel_Illusion
Summary: Just a little one-shot collection I'm doing for Baldi's Basics.Chapter One: A Shiny Quarter (It's a Bully, Baldi)Chapter Two: Running (Andrew)Chapter Three: Words (Princibaldi)Chapter Four: Cake (Baldi) (Warnings in beginning notes)Chapter Five: (Im)maturity (Playtime)
Relationships: Baldi & It's a Bully (Baldi's Basics), Baldi/Principal of the Thing (Baldi's Basics)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	1. A Shiny Quarter

The school bully grumbles to himself as he slouches towards classroom ninety-nine. Other students give him a wide berth when they see him in the hallways; they know he isn't in the best of moods, and no one wants to be on the receiving end of his ire. Are they stupid? Of course, he won't try anything with the headmaster roaming the halls. His parents already bother him all day about his grades, and they don't need to know about his role as the school bully. What they don't know can't hurt them.

The corridors are nearly empty now. The bully continues to drag his feet, being sure to go across the school to take the stairs and stopping at every water fountain. Despite all his efforts, he still arrives at his destination far too quickly for his liking. He shifts from one foot to the other, pretending to organise his school bag before he finally runs out of things to waste time on. After a few more moments of hesitation, he takes a breath, turns the doorknob and enters without knocking.

At the sound of the door opening, the mathematics teacher glances up at him, before gesturing for him to take a seat. Making sure his every move screams "I don't want to be here", the bully drops his bag on the floor and slumps down in his seat.

He takes a peek at the papers his teacher is grading. Baldi's just added up someone's score and is now writing some feedback in vibrant red ink. Looks like Vivian got seven out of ten. Well, good for her then, he thinks. Andrew, the smarty-pants nerd, got full marks and a little doodle of a smiling person. The weird art kid with the sock puppet also has a one. The doodles are simplistic, with two small triangles to make a collar and an upside-down kite shape to make a tie. Both have just one piece of hair, clearly supposed to be the teacher himself. One of them's even responding to a little drawing from the art kid. The school bully, he's not supposed to care about grades, but he can't help but notice how all the scores he can see are higher than his.

Baldi finally finishes whatever he's writing and sets the pen down. He takes a wooden ruler from the desk, crosses his legs and gives the bully a look.

"Now, I believe that I told you to come here right after school, yes?"

"Yes, Mr Baldi…" He grumbles.

"So why is it that you come here twenty minutes after school ends? Correcting your quiz will not take long. I suspect that if you'd come earlier, we could have been almost done by now."

The teacher looks to him for an answer, seeing that he's pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt. When it's clear he's not giving him an answer, Baldi sighs and pulls out the quiz from a clear folder.

"I suppose it doesn't matter. You've at least shown up, so I promise I won't take too much of your time."

Baldi steps out from behind the teacher's desk and comes to stand in front of the table he's occupying. He slides the paper onto the table and uses the ruler to tap at a question.

"This one's simple multiplication. I can see the method you've attempted here, and it's mostly correct…"

The bully bumbles his way through a couple of questions. All the while, his mind is in a haze, and he continually tunes out the teacher's careful instructions. He only manages to get the correct answer by guessing at what he's missed in his daydreaming. He's not prone to sleeping in the middle of the day, but doing maths is just so monotonous that he finds himself drifting off regardless. 

He's brought back to reality when he hears the rap of wood hitting wood. He wakes with a jolt and looks up to see a slight frown on the teacher's face. Baldi starts to tap the ruler against his palm. He looks like he's got half a mind to smack him with it, so the bully sits straighter and tries not to react.

"You're not paying attention."

That part is obvious. He doesn't know how anyone can stay focused on a task so dull.

"It seems to me that you think there's no reason for any of this, correct?"

He deliberately doesn't meet his teacher's eyes, looking anywhere but his face.

"Hm, I will take that as a yes. How, then, am I to motivate you enough, so you do your work?"

He doesn't even realise what he's saying until he's already saying it.

"You wanna get me to do something? Give me money, then."

He shuts his mouth immediately once he realises what he's done. Oh, he's gonna get it now. The air suddenly feels so heavy, the silence so deafening. His chest feels tight, and in trying to avoid Baldi's gaze, he lowers his eyes to his teacher's hands and observes that the skin is red and irritated, even starting to bruise in some places from that _damn_ ruler.

Baldi lets the silence linger on for a while, before finally bringing his ruler to the page.

"Question seven. Five point ninety-three times one hundred. Need I explain this one or will you be able to do it yourself?"

He deflates like a punctured balloon. Where the room was just crackling with tension one minute ago, now it just feels so empty, so big, and only one teacher plus one student occupy it. He doesn't _sound_ angry, but the bully wants to take no chances. He brings his pencil, with his hand still shaking slightly from nerves, to the paper.

Anything multiplied by ten, move the decimal one place to the right. The amount of zeroes is the number of times you move the decimal place. Five hundred ninety-three. Easy. Prime numbers can only be divided by one and themselves. If you're gonna divide it by something else, the answer'll become a decimal. Four doesn't fit into two, but four times seven is twenty-eight, and twenty-nine minus twenty-eight is one. Four does go two times into ten, but that leaves two. Four times five is twenty, and that's perfect. Seven point two five. Done. The bigger the bottom number of a fraction is (What the _hell_ was it called again?), the smaller the fraction is. That doesn't really make sense, but whatever. One over twenty-two is lower than one over ten, but it's bigger than one over forty-three, even if it doesn't seem like it. And that's…

Before he knows it, he's done, and the paper's been whisked away. He watches in slight surprise as the teacher bends over and slides the graded quiz back to him. There's a score, ten out of ten, circled at the top right corner. Below it, a little gingerbread man stands in all of its one haired, triangle collar and kite tied glory. A curved line leads from the face to a circle that's surrounding a few words scribbled in a messy cursive.

You've done great! Keep it up~

He's distracted once again as a round, flat shape is flipped onto the table before him. It spins on its edges for a while before coming to a stop. The number twenty-five winks up at him, reflecting the blinding white light that's emitted from up above. He looks up at Baldi, who's collecting a bunch of papers on his desk and placing them into their separate folders. The teacher looks up, his lips twitch up in a small smile.

"You'd best be off now; the bus will be leaving soon, and your parents may be worried."

He nods, mumbles a thank-you and stands, grabbing the test, the coin and his bag. His footsteps echo in the empty hallways as he makes his way out to the front of the school.

He feels the quarter dig into his palm, marking the skin.


	2. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew wishes he could stop running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like most everything else I write, done in one or two bursts of inspiration. Regardless, I hope you enjoy.

This isn’t supposed to happen.

He hastily folds the paper so that the score’s hidden and stuffs it in his folder. It can’t be. He’s understood the material and gotten almost-perfect marks on every test until now. Grammar is hard for him; he can write just fine with all the correct spellings and punctuation, but language, whether it’s speaking or writing, is something that comes natural, that he doesn’t really think about.

That’s why when a new teacher is hired - because here at Here School the staff is respected and if a teacher needs to leave for personal reasons they’re let go - and said teacher bases an entire unit on learning the rules and conventions of the English language, he _knows_ he’s done. He’s spoken this language all his life, and then he’s expected to go back and learn of new (to him, at least) restrictions to the language that he uses without thought every day. It’s infuriating.

Annie, who’s one desk to the right elbows him and asks the dreaded question: “What score did you get on the test?”

He stretches his arms across the desk, grabs on to the opposite end, gives a half-hearted chuckle.

“Ehh… Not too high. You?”

She laughs almost as soon as the words leave his mouth. _“Come on, you’re the best student of our year! Just tell us; I’m sure it can’t be_ that _bad!”_

He dodges the question, reiterating that his score’s low until Annie leaves him alone, still under the delusion that he’d got high marks.

-

(On the next quiz he loses just one mark. He’s salty about it but nevertheless places the test paper on his desk where it’s plain for all to see and complains rather loudly about the one mark lost. He’s hoping for validation, but all the other kids do is dismiss him and agonise over their much lower grades. At the end of class, he places the test right in the front of his transparent folder, so hopefully someone’ll see it and comment on it.

After school, he finds that a friend who’s took the same test scored higher than him by a few marks. They did the bonus questions. Of course they did and he didn't. He takes the quiz, folds it, and stuffs it in the middle of the folder.)

-

A ninety-two.

One mark off from an A. Not that ninety-three is very high, but still. Ninety-two. He’s done so terribly that the thing he put effort into last night isn’t even worth a low A. And the teacher tells them “Don’t take this mark too seriously”?

His partner’s trying to speak to him, but English is not their native language and they can’t find the words to express themselves. He focusses on the scribbled lines of feedback.

_Presentation could be better, needs to be more relevant to the topic, remember to explain how everything works because the audience aren’t mind-readers and—_

“Andrew?”

He looks up. Milla is stood in front of his desk, frowning down at him.

“What?”

The word comes out harsher than he thought it would. He didn’t mean to snap, but he doesn’t take it back or apologise either.

“They really want to help you with this. It’s not just your own project, you know. Let them do something.”

She gestures to the side where his partner’s shuffling their feet. Seems like they asked her to speak for them.

He looks to her, to his partner, back again. He sighs, turns his back on her.

“Fine.” He says, more to his partner than Milla. “Come here.”

They do, and he narrows his eyes, trying to find something that he’s sure they won’t butcher. Make it prettier… But their handwriting’s atrocious and he doesn’t want to know how their drawing skills are. Add things to do with the topic? But they are attending a class that’s not in their native language; how can he know if they even understand the material?

Well… Andrew still thinks they’ve got the handwriting of a kindergarten student, but it’s readable, at least. He’ll have them write out descriptions, and he’ll send to them exactly what needs to be transcribed. That’ll leave no room for screw-ups.

-

He loitered too long in the morning, and now he’ll be late to class. He runs, though he’s just about out of breath, to make it to the classroom in time. He turns a corner and comes to an abrupt halt, but too late. The principal’s already seen him.

“No running in the halls…” How can a human being’s voice be so monotone? “Fifteen minutes, detention for you. You should know better.”

He sighs, knowing it’s true. He should know better, and the teachers would expect better from the top student of the year level. He can already hear the taunts from that student who bullies the primary school kids.

When he meets up with his friend fifteen minutes later than they’d planned, he lies and says he didn’t get detention. He was just talking to the maths teacher about his homework and you _know_ how strict he is, he had to pull out every argument to convince him, and that’s really the reason why he couldn’t meet up right after school.

-

“Andrew! Can you answer it? Who was the detective originally hired to solve the case?”

God. Damn it.

“Uh… Could you, um, repeat the question? I didn’t hear…”

It’s not like he didn’t do the assigned reading. He _did_ do it, it’s just that he may be skimmed it only enough to write the summary, and yes, that included the name of the detective, but even though it’s on the tip of his tongue his mind is drawing a blank now—

He feels his cheeks warm. He could look through the text right now, it would take a few seconds, but he could give the right answer, but oh no, he’s the top student, he’s the one who’s meant to be smarter than anyone else here, and he’s got that reputation to uphold and looking at the text would damage it—

Too late. The teacher has already called on the second-best in the class, and she’s already given the correct answer. Damn his stupid memory and damn his laziness.

He keeps his head down for the rest of the class.

-

“Keeping your body healthy is important. You’ll exercise back home every day you don’t at school from now, won’t you?”

OK, OK, if he can just go back now…

“Good grades mean nothing if you don’t have good health.”

“Yes, teacher, I know.”

You’d think Ms Susan was his mother, with how she coddles him. Granted, anything would be better than his current situation…

Some other teacher calls her just then, and she goes with another reminder about health. Of course, he’s not gonna follow her advice. She says grades are nothing without health, but he thinks good health is nothing if you’ve not got good grades.

\- 

“No running in the halls”, the school headmaster is notorious for saying. When asked, he tells you that it’s no use running in the corridors; you’ll shove into and potentially hurt other students, you may damage other’s or your own property, you tire yourself out unnecessarily. There’s no need to rush so much; do things in a calm and orderly manner, then you won’t make mistakes. He keeps you after school so you’d see reason; being late for a class is not too, too, big of a deal, and he hopes that you could see that it’s better to go at a normal pace and just apologise to the teacher, rather than trying to rush and gaining another punishment that could’ve been avoided.

Andrew wishes he could stop running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that ending came out of nowhere.


	3. Words (Princibaldi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The principal often can't find the right words to express himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it's not clear, Charlie = Baldi. My version of Baldi's is named Charles Baldimore.

It’s like this: the principal walks into the bedroom, ready to pass out after a day of paperwork, meetings, calls to and from many parents. He’s tired, he hasn’t slept well for two nights, and he’ll probably need a metric ton of caffeine to tide him over until the weekend. And even then, there’s still going to be work to do.

But he walks in, thinking how thankful he is that Playtime’s sleeping over at his parent’s house, and his heart stops.

Or maybe it melts. Whatever.

But he walks in and all he sees is his partner curled up half-way under the bedsheets, the phone he clutches in loose fingers, how unbelievably cute he looks wearing a shirt so oversized that the short sleeves reach to his elbows and the milky skin of his thighs left exposed and he feels like he’s drowning because he loves him so, so, much.

He takes the phone aside, then slips on his night clothes and into the bed as quietly as he can, holding Charlie close like he’s something precious - _because_ he’s something precious, and presses their foreheads together. He wants to say it. Just three words; _I_ _love you_ , but he can’t. They stick in his throat like— Like something he can’t find a comparison for, and try as he might, he can’t seem to get them out.

It’s like this: he’s never been the most vocal person on the planet. When he was little, his parents and teachers worried that he was too quiet, but no matter how much they prodded and put him on the spot, he kept mum because there _was_ nothing to say (At least, nothing he knew how to express through words).

_I love you_ , he tells him every day, but it just doesn’t feel like enough. Three words, spoken so often from a mother to her child, from that same person to her spouse, from that spouse to _their_ mother or that mother’s grandchild to their best friend or childhood crush. When things are used so commonly, they lose their meaning eventually; they don’t retain the _value_ that was so sought after when it was still rare.

Maybe that’s why people like swearing, he muses. If you tell someone “I’m so angry at you!”, it may not feel particularly angry. Then if you’ve got the same circumstances, the same people, except this time you say to them “Fuck you!”, then it just carries so much more _emotion_. The tone, the feeling, or the way it’s not spread over so many words, or how it’s so versatile it can be used in any situation (imagine that same person saying “Oh, fuck you, dude.”, except this time you know that they’re good friends. Sounds different, doesn’t it?), _something_ about it…

And… He’s once again got no words to express himself.

A notification lights up his phone. He briefly twists around to see that a little more than thirty minutes have passed since he got into bed. He was so tired before, but now he feels like he’ll never get to sleep.

He settles back into bed, and feels legs hook the best they can around his waist, arms encircling his neck. He smiles. His Charlie rarely ever swears; he’s far too gentle for that. Sure, the students may think he’s strict, but he really does want the best for them. Besides, they don’t see how he’ll randomly pop in or text about the most random things, or how he likes being surrounded by white noise picked up by his seemingly superhuman hearing, or how he blushes and stutters when praised…

Another reason why the principal doesn’t compliment him too much. Charlie gets extremely flustered and he doesn’t want to overwhelm him, especially when he hasn’t had any prior experience with relationships.

Oh, but he wants to. He wants so much to tell him, to tell him he loves him, he deserves everything in the world, no, he’s his whole world, he is the whole world, but no, that’s not correct, because the world is so cruel and there are so many terrible things and people out there; it could be said that he’s everything he has, but what he has is an odd medical condition affecting his eyes and mouth, a bundle of insecurities and bad decisions coupled with some darker, more possessive part of him that he rejects and that just won’t do, but if he’s not his world and he’s not everything he has, then maybe he’s everything he adores, but there are so little things he covets as much as he does _him_ and all the beautiful things in the world won’t hold a candle to his darling, because he doesn’t know how to describe it, but he does know that if he was left on his own, he’s not sure if he’d ever be all right again—

It’s like this: he loves, always has loved how if you look at Charlie’s eyes one way, you’ll believe that they’re green, but then the light shifts or something and then you’ll swear that they’ve turned into a lovely blue colour, and he realises two things. One, those eyes are open, though a little drowsy, and they’re looking at him right now. Two, everything after his little tangent about swearing, he’s been saying out loud. It doesn’t matter how quietly he’s been speaking; Charlie hears everything.

There are questions in his eyes, gentle and warm as ever, a pink tongue darting out to wet his lips. They both know that the principal can’t ever resist those baby doll eyes, and he knows that words wouldn’t quite do him justice.

So, he kisses him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha-ha, I cannot write romance.
> 
> Edit: Want to say something to me, I recently made a Tumblr account! The URL is pixel-illusionette. Thank you for reading!


	4. Cake (Read warnings, please)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moist and gooey chocolate batter, sweet strawberry frosting with just a hint of lemon. Who can resist it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for gore/candy gore(?) potential cannibalism.
> 
> Based off of a drawing by Sentryworm of Baldi as a cake: https://sentryworm.tumblr.com/post/623588238962163712/everything-is-cake-even-baldi-is-cake
> 
> (I made a drawing, too: https://pixel-illusionette.tumblr.com/post/623864823183179776/oh-yea-i-didnt-post-this-here-did-i-spike-the)

The child runs as fast as their tired legs will allow. They’d gotten somewhat unlucky with the presents; not one in view that they could afford to nab without getting caught by you, and all they have left is a pair of big old boots. Even as their stamina runs dry, they force themselves to keep going. You admire their perseverance.

It must have seemed so dragged out to them, though for you it is over in a moment. They’d dragged themselves into the canteen, then upon seeing the final door, put on a burst of speed. The lights come back on, that terrible droning, screeching noise stops, your mind is empty again.

_Go on_ , your voice tells them, though you don’t speak of your own will, _blow out the candle—!_

They do, and your light goes out.

Plastic forks, paper plates, plastic cake knife. You remember your younger self, giving the eastern drama on the telly a passing glance, seeing a woman’s head on a chopping board with her neck being sliced. Strangely, there was no gore in that scene. You wonder if she, too, had turned into a dessert. Maybe she was served to her friends after that scene.

Someone - the principal, most likely - approaches you with the knife. Off go your fondant hands (an easy task since they aren’t physically attached to your body), your roll-cake limbs (possibly split in half for two to share), your torso and head cut into regular serving sizes for whoever wants more. The children scarf down their share and quickly ask for seconds. The principal obliges, but stops them from eating too much - rightfully so! They’re still young; they need proper nutrition to grow, and too much sugar can’t be good for you…

By now, most of your body has been finished off. One by one, the others are elevated up to where the distorted reflection of the school is. The sprites remain, but you can tell they are gone. The child goes off to explore the school’s reflection, though as you watch them through your little balloon puppets, you notice another presence.

He is held in the detention room, waiting for someone to approach so he can give his little speech. You’d heard his last one, distorted and stretched as your sprite was at the time. Will he give a similar one this time? Is he annoyed at the child’s inability to “destroy the game”? He _does_ know who’s _really_ in control here, does he not…?

But all that aside, he must feel lonely. As far as you know, you, he, and the child are the only ones who’re able to control your own actions to some extent. You reach out…

Shift the hallways, connect the office to the canteen. Try to coax him; don’t you want a piece of cake? Moist and gooey chocolate batter, sweet strawberry frosting with just a hint of lemon. Who can resist it? Not him, you know, as he tries to be subtle in eyeing the remaining slices. A quick glance thrown back, as if asking your permission, and he snatches up a shoulder piece. The first bite makes him wince slightly - he’s not had something so sweet in a while - but he soon grows used to it. He goes for another corner piece (does he like the fondant, too?) and he takes and he takes what you’re all too happy to give, until he’s satiated.

Up above, the child has at last figured out the mechanics. They go around, counting your puppets and inputting the amounts into the puzzle room. A little more wandering around the glitched school, then they find your red puppets. You decide to enter one of them, which just so happens to be the one the child approaches and makes contact with.

Now, one pair of extremely sensitive ears can be overwhelming on their own. Multiple puppets mean multiple pairs of ears, mean multiple sources of sensory information. Add the fact that your red puppets have multiple heads and they seem to multiply every second, and…

Once again, your world goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's shorter than the others in this collection, and that it's so messy. ;A; I don't have the motivation to write. I will say that you can expect another Andrew one-shot sometime in the future, though!


	5. (Im)maturity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today, she’s a princess. The whole world is her playground to play in, and right now, the little town is her kingdom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Originally a scrapped work, dug out and cleaned up a bit to post because I've got no motivation. One of the only works that doesn't include Baldi in some way, ahaha, because I really think about him too much. Hopefully you'll enjoy it.)

Today, she’s a princess. The whole world is her playground to play in, and right now, the little town is her kingdom. Austen is her friend, the thief, and their sock puppet, Crafters, is the horse they both ride to freedom. Together they are Arts, Princess Penny (They couldn’t think of a better name for her, OK?), and Crafters.

Their story begins when Artsy arrives where the statue of the school’s founder is, which they’ve decided is her tower. They’ve just stolen the shiniest (plastic) jewels from the art classroom castle, and they need to hide from the guards, ever-vigilant and unwaveringly loyal to the crown. Arts had brought with them stories of the outside world, so exciting and beautiful and unlike her boring tower.

They both escape by letting her jump-rope down, and though at first, the princess is afraid she’ll ruin her pretty red dress, that thought is thrown out the window as they romp around the playground. When the royal knight passes by with the _clop-clop_ of her red high-heeled shoes, they hide, waiting until she’s passed to let the giggles burst out (she hears them, of course, who wouldn’t, but she just smiles and lets them continue their little daydreams). Towards the end of break-time, they spot the king, who’s been sentencing people to the detention room dungeon for running or breaking the rules in the halls.

They are upon him in moments, and if she hears some of the village people saying she’d never be a princess how high and mighty does she think herself for being the principal’s daughter, she’s so childish to _ever_ think she really could be one, she ignores it.

-

On this day, she’s an explorer. She’s rescuing Prize from the many dangerous traps of the playground temple, and then, together, they’re gonna find the secret treasures hidden beneath the apple tree.

(Hidden treasure is always a constant in her adventure games; she’s a child, and she likes little playthings and she likes owning something pretty though she didn’t earn it no not like the dubbed “First Prize” who won in a science fair years ago—)

She dodges flying basketballs, dodgeballs, and spins on the playground equipment until it’s her world spinning instead of her person. When she’s made her way across the playground one time, she ducks into the school building and goes back again, being extra careful to not step on the cracks between the tiles of the ground floor. Back to the playground, dancing around flying balls, disdainful eyes and mocking words.

(It’s at that moment, the school bell sounds, marking the end of their break. She pretends her teachers are the temple guardians, asking her to solve their riddles. When they’re satisfied that she knows how to answer the questions, they’ll let her go for the lunch break.)

Back out on the playground, she reaches Prize. With her pushing them, they go ‘round the field twice, always looking out for the obstacles and enemies.

When they reach the apple tree, they retrieve the imaginary treasures and then immediately run from non-existent enemies. They make it out alive, of course, good guys always do, and then that’s the end of that.

-

It’s the same every school day. Wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, train to school. Sit in her seat and wait for the teacher to start class, and watch her classmates have fun and chit-chat with one another. The teacher comes and starts the class. Then snack time where she sits and her desk-mates chat and she is left out. Fifteen-minute break spent on the bench. Class. Lunch where no one talks to her again. Play time. School’s not that fun anymore.

-

She’s a cat today. Nothing else. She’s not a magical cat with powers from the galaxy, or a cat with a rainbow unicorn horn to grant wishes.

She looks for someone to act as the cat’s owner, but no one wants to play her games. She meows and nags her friends to play with her, but she hears other classmates whispering and she stops.

-

She is Playtime. She is a seven-year-old girl, she’s in year two right now, and she likes to play jump-rope.

She plays alone, by herself during the lunch break. Austen has classes with the secondary students so their lunch break is at a different time. She doesn’t know where First Prize is. She knows pretty much everyone in her class, just not well enough for them to ask her to play.

There’s no need to play little kiddy games, anyway. She’s a big girl. Big girls don’t need those things.

-

She spends the lunch break in the classroom with a book or a whiteboard and marker; her jump-rope stays at home, stuffed in one of her toy drawers. She tries humming to herself to break the silence of the classroom but stops soon after. The walls muffle but don’t block out the shouts of her classmates having fun outside.

In class, she listens attentively and shushes anyone who tries to talk. Worksheets, activities, quizzes, she does alone. When she finds something funny or interesting, she has to keep herself from laughing out loud or turning to a classmate. She can’t do much, she finds, when she’s trying to be mature.

Not much changes at home. She plays or reads by herself, does her homework, maybe goes on the computer if she’s bored. When it’s time for bed, and she goes to brush her teeth, she finds that her favourite strawberry-flavoured toothpaste with the bunny on the front has run out. After trying to squeeze out just a little bit to no avail, she ends up setting it aside and using her parent’s. The mint of the grown-up toothpaste burns her mouth and brings tears to her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and/or kudos are always appreciated-- Please tell me what you think--
> 
> Tumblr: https://pixel-illusionette.tumblr.com/


End file.
